What is Yet to be Transformed in Our Lives as a Firstfruits of God?

Well, thank you again, gentlemen, and again, happy Sabbath and happy high day to all of you. A very special Sabbath day of rest, one of God's seven annual holy days. About seven weeks ago, we were celebrating the seven days of unleavened bread, and you may recall we observed in those days of celebration.

Celebration of Jesus Christ is the bread of life, who died for us and offers to live in us through the gift of the Holy Spirit. As always, the feast was very meaningful, and it was spiritually rewarding. And here we are, seven weeks later, observing another festival that reminds us not only of the salvation offered by Jesus Christ, but also a spiritual transformation.

So let's review the biblical history from first the Old Testament, and we'll look at some things that we've actually talked about recently before, but repetition is a good thing. And then we're going to go to the New Testament, near the end of the sermon, regarding this period of time, this Shavote, this Feast of Weeks, this day of Pentecost, in 2023.

God's religious feasts are associated with agricultural harvest. There's a powerful metaphor there, because ultimately God is harvesting souls. He has a plan, and he wants through that plan to harvest human souls to become part of his family. And he has a process for that to happen. And the best way to teach people, including ourselves, even our own generation, of God's plan, is for him to build these holy days around agricultural harvest.

In Palestine, there were two major harvest seasons each year. The first small harvest began in the spring, and was reflected through the spring holy days and beyond. In Exodus 23 and verse 15, it calls this the Feast of Harvest, the first fruits of your labors. And that's what we're celebrating on this very day. A second, much larger fall harvest occurred in the year and was reflected through the fall holy days, especially the Feast of Tabernacles. And more to come about that, obviously, as we get closer to the feast this year. Exodus 23 verse 15 calls this the Feast of In-Gathering, and it took place at the end of the year.

And its harvest was not just simply grains, like we're celebrating through the spring season here in the early summer. Its harvest was of grapes, olives, and other fruit crops that take more time to develop and mature before they can be harvested during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. So in ancient Palestine, the first spring harvest began with a barley harvest. Barley grows better in cooler weather.

It was the first to mature before the wheat did. So it began ripening the season, began introduced to us through a barley harvest a few days after the Passover. And this was the first yearly grain harvest in Palestine. And seven weeks later, again, picturing this very day, the spring harvest season ended when the wheat harvest festival occurred around the time of Pentecost. We'll break this down into a little more detail. So now let's review the institution of this Holy Day season from the book of Leviticus. If you'll turn to Leviticus chapter 23, and we'll pick it up in verse 6.

First, the very meaning of the name of the month, the first month in the Hebrew calendar, was named Abib, or Aviv. And its very name means green young ears of grain. And this month was called that title, was called, given that name, because it started when the green barley seeds had reached full size and were filled with starch, but were not dried yet. If you took a look at that graphic that they had up here earlier, you'll notice that it showed grain, right? You will notice that much of it was brown, but in the far right side of that graphic was green.

Green. Because it hadn't matured yet. It hadn't come to the point where it was edible. Maybe they'll throw that graphic up for you to be able to take a look at it. A few weeks later, the barley was ripened around the time of the days of unleavened bread. So it went from being green to brown, and brown meant you can harvest this now, you can make it into something edible, you can make it into breads, you can make it into whatever you want to.

And that was occurring a couple of weeks after the month of Aviv, or Aviv began. So let's pick it up here in Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 6. And on the fifteenth day of the same month, again this month of Aviv, is the feast of unleavened bread to the Lord.

Seven days you must eat unleavened bread, and on the first day you shall have a holy convocation, you shall do no customary work on it, but you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation, and you shall do no customary work on it. Therefore the Lord, you should do no customary work on it, verse 9, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land that I will give you, this is speaking in the future of the Promised Land, when they come into the Promised Land and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheath of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest.

Now the first thing we need to notice here, and I'm going to bring this back later, is that they were to bring a sheath to the priest. A sheath was a bundle of cut stalks of grain. Not one bundle of grain, but a complete bundle of a number of stalks of grain. And we're going to see how this ties into a New Testament scripture in just a few minutes.

So again, it says that you shall bring a sheath of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheath before the Lord to be accepted on your behalf on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. And of course, this was the Sabbath during the days of Unleavened Bread. A day that we would call Sunday today.

Again, the day after the Sabbath during the spring holy days. Verse 14, you shall eat neither bread nor parts grain, nor fresh grain until the same day that you have brought an offering to your God.

It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations and all your dwellings. And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath. From that day you brought the sheath of the wave offering. Seven Sabbaths will be completed. Count 50 days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord. So not simply a bundle of barley stocks put together, offering it before God as you did during the days of Unleavened Bread.

But a totally different type of offering would be given on the Feast of Weeks or the day of Pentecost. So during the days of Unleavened Bread, just to recap what we've read here, a special ceremony would occur on the day after the weekly Sabbath. The first bundle of newly harvested barley grain was brought to the priest.

The fresh harvest was presented to God as a wave sheath offering along with other offerings. The Israelites were not to eat any of the barley harvest until this special offering was made on the day after the Sabbath. So the harvest could not begin until this wave sheath offering was presented to God. The harvest season would continue joyfully, I might add. For the next seven weeks, it would begin with the barley harvest, and after a while that would begin to peter out as it was harvested, and the weather's getting warmer during those seven weeks, and sure enough, the wheat would come to maturity.

And so the harvest would continue bringing in wheat, and it was actually a wheat offering that would be given on that 50th day, the day that we're celebrating today. This new grain offering, again, was wheat, and some unique offerings occurred on this 50th day, including the presentation of two large loaves of bread mixed with, of all things, leaven.

And we know what leaven represents, don't we? Right? It represents sin. Later, the day was called by the Greek name of Pentecost, which is the term and the name that we use mostly today. Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 17. Let's put these pieces together here.

You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be a fine flower, beaten down very fine. And they shall be baked with leaven. And again, we know from the days of unleavened bread what leaven represents. They are the firstfruits to the Lord, and you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year without blemish, one young bowl and two rams, and they shall be a burnt offering to the Lord with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire for sweet aroma to the Lord. So in these verses, it is now again the Feast of Weeks, the day of firstfruits, the day of Pentecost, Shavuot. So instead of barley as a wave sheath being offered in an act of elevation to God, as it was during the days of unleavened bread, two wave loaves were created as an offering, and this offering is made of wheat and is purposely mixed with leaven. I want to say that again. It is purposely to be mixed with leaven and offered as something responsible and wonderful to God. These are designated as the firstfruits to the Lord. That's verse 17.

The two loaves represented both Jews and Gentiles who are called to become the spiritual firstfruits. To put it another way, the two loaves represented two covenants. One covenant was made with the physical descendants of Abraham, and the other loaf represented the new covenant, which is offered to all humanity, no matter what your DNA or your particular lineage.

But what does the leaven mixed in represent? Why, of all things leaven? Well, this shows the reality that the people God would call and harvest are imperfect, and that they have sin, and that they're working to overcome that sin, but they are not perfect.

They are flawed. As a matter of fact, they need a Savior. They need Jesus Christ. Yet remember that these wave loaves are being offered to and accepted by God. And the message here, the spiritual message is that we're not righteous because of who we are, but because of whose we are.

We belong to Jesus Christ, and He is our righteousness.

So that's why leaven was mixed into these loaves. The people that God has always worked with. Look at the characters in the Old Testament. You find flawed human beings that God worked with.

Look at the person sitting next to you, to your left or right. They are a flawed human being. Hope that's not a shock to any of you. They are a flawed human being whom God is working with, whom God loves in a very deep and profound way. Now I want you to hold your place. We're going to go to 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 20. Because I just want to hit this point home about the fact that we are not saved because of who we are, but because of whose we are. The fact that we belong to Jesus Christ. So hold your place and go to 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 20. And we'll see how Paul writes this so powerfully. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 20.

He says, now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For he, God, made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. You see, brethren, it is Jesus Christ in us through the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that he and the Father share. He mentions that in John chapter 14 and verse 23. The same Spirit that's shared by the Father and Son is the same Spirit that we have. It's that that gives us and makes us, quote, the righteousness of God in him. That is in Jesus Christ, despite our flaws, despite our human imperfections. Otherwise, we would live daily under the curse of sin and its consequences. With that being said, let's go back to Leviticus 23 now, and we'll pick it up in verse 18. Leviticus chapter 23 verse 18. Was there something to symbolize what I just said? Was there something to symbolize what Paul just related to us in 2 Corinthians chapter 5? Sure, there was. And it's revealed to us in Leviticus 23, 18. And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year without blemish, one young bull and two rams, and they shall be as burnt offering as a burnt offering to the Lord with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma to the Lord. So along with this grain offering is a large number of animal sacrifices, and they all represent an aspect or a quality of Jesus Christ. But what I want to focus on is among these included seven lambs in verse 18. What does seven represent? I think most of us who are ancient certainly know, and we're taught numerous times, that the seven is the number of perfection and completion. The seven lambs, and we know Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, the seven lambs represent the complete, perfect, and sacred righteousness of Jesus Christ. And those lambs are there, sacrificed at the time of those loaves that just also happened to be leavened. They are offered with the two loaves because they made the unleavened loaves acceptable to God. So even with leaven mixed in within the loaves, along with those seven lambs, what did it say here at the end of verse 18? A sweet aroma to the Lord, in spite of the fact that there's leaven, in spite of the fact that the characters in the Old Testament had some issues and struggled with some sins, in spite of the fact that we have some issues and oftentimes struggle with sin. So again, I want to emphasize the importance and the symbolism of this particular offering. The Israelites celebrated the entire seven weeks with joy as they gathered the harvest that the land had produced. I want you to picture how important the harvest season was for the nation. Maybe we can more appreciate the joy that they shared. A good harvest meant something really important to them. You get to live. Because if you didn't have a good harvest, you'd run out of food. You would starve! We're talking about survival here. We're talking about continued existence if there wasn't a harvest or if it was a poor harvest. So it was very, very important for them. We're talking about survival. And God used the agricultural season to explain his plan of harvesting souls and offering salvation for all humankind. Physically speaking, again, a good harvest season meant survival. Spiritually speaking, God is harvesting a small group of firstfruits as part of his plan.

And he's offering through this harvesting of souls not just continued human survival, but he's offering the opportunity for human and going beyond human for eternal life and living forever within the very family of God. Let's continue now our discussion. If you'll turn with me to John chapter 20 and verse 11, we'll now go to the New Testament. And again, we'll review some things that we've spoken about recently. Repetition is a good thing. And sometimes if we hear these things enough and often enough, they will become part of our understanding of Scripture and we'll be able to easily explain it to others in casual conversations. John chapter 20, beginning in verse 11. This is, of course, speaking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are familiar with the fact that Jesus, in 31 A.D., was crucified on a Wednesday afternoon. He was dead for three days and three nights, as he said he would be, using Jonah as an example. He arose in late Saturday afternoon. So let's pick up the story here in John chapter 20, verse 11. So Mary goes to the tomb. This would be very early Sunday morning before sunrise. And she stood outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept and she stooped down and looked into the tomb, she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they said to her, She said to them, She thinks his body has been stolen. Verse 14.

So again, it reinforces. She doesn't quite make the connection. There's a literal resurrection that took place. She's thinking that they just stole the body and they're hiding it somewhere.

So a brief recap of what we just read. Mary stayed at the tomb weeping. And then she goes inside. She reenters the tomb. She sees the two angels who speak to her. Then Jesus appears and he speaks to her. But at first she doesn't recognize him. The man she is talking to may have appeared disfigured. We know that he went through scourging. And we know later on, that very day, he shows his disciples, you put your finger and look at the holes in my sides and the holes in my wrist where I was nailed to the stake. And look at these scars on my body. He may very well also had scars on his face and been disfigured because of the scourging he went through. She assumes he was a gardener.

The Greek word here is kapouros, and it means a garden keeper or a warden. She just assumed that's who she was talking to. The man doesn't immediately look like Jesus to her. But as he continues to speak, there's some unique quality about the human voice. And I'm sure this has happened to you.

I pick up the phone and as soon as someone says, hello, I know who it is. There's just the unique tone that human beings have that you can pick up on who it is very quickly. And he had said, Mary. It was something about the way he said that, that made the connection. In her excitement, she desires to embrace him. But he stops her. And why? Well, it's the day after the weekly Sabbath during the days of Unleavened Bread, and on this very morning, the priest in the temple was preparing to offer that first barley green offering, that wave offering, to begin to count the seven-week spring harvest season.

Jesus was the ultimate fulfillment of the wave sheaf offering. He was going to ascend to the Father's throne, and he was going to be accepted as the first of the firstfruits. And then a harvest would begin, a harvest of souls, a harvest, a small first harvest, would begin because Jesus Christ was being accepted as the ultimate fulfillment of the wave sheaf offering. He was the firstborn of many brethren, as it states in Leviticus 23 and verse 11, we read earlier, this wave sheaf was to, quote, be accepted on your behalf.

Jesus Christ, the sinless Lamb of God who shed his blood, was accepted on our behalf. And our sins can be forgiven because he was accepted on our behalf. Again, as it says in Leviticus 23 verse 11, not only are our sins forgiven because of the shed blood of Christ, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ is accepted on our behalf, and he becomes our righteousness.

Even though we're still struggling with our own humanity, we're still struggling with our own carnal, human nature. Beginning with Christ, the spiritual firstfruits, or smaller harvest of God's children, could now begin. And from that day on, including throughout many centuries, including this very day, God the Father would begin to call and elect few to prepare for service in the kingdom of God. And at that time, a far greater and much larger harvest would take place, symbolized by the Feast of Tabernacles.

But God would start with a small harvest. In essence, God was beginning to train the trainers. And that's why you and I have been called to be the servants, to be there, to be prepared to serve when the beginning of that much larger harvest begins, that we will have been transformed into spirit, and be able to serve God and serve them because of our life experiences, because of what we endured in this lifetime, because of what we learned through the School of Hard Knocks, for many of our cases, and learned to do what was good and right, and learned to reject what is evil and wrong and bad in human life.

Let's go to Matthew chapter 27 and verse 50. Let's look at a few verses that only make sense in the context of this symbolic, wave-sheaf offering that we were talking about that took place during the days of unleavened bread. If you don't understand that, then these verses just seem to come out of nowhere. It's like, what's this about? Well, we're going to find out what this is about. Matthew chapter 27 verse 50. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice. He yielded up his spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom.

I'll stop there as a side bar. The veil of the temple is what separated people from going into the literal presence of God. It was a heavy curtain that said, Keep out! Only the high priest, once a year, can come through this veil and approach God. And the very fact that that veil was torn from top to bottom, rent apart, represented the fact that Jesus Christ and his righteousness makes it possible for us to go directly to the throne of God and to explain to him our needs and our fears and our anxiety and our wants and our hopes.

No longer are we separated from God the Father. That veil has been torn in two. Now let's continue. It says the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened. And many bodies of the saints, these are people who would be considered righteous, godly people in the past, who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the graves after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

So why did the bodies of these saints also come out of their graves immediately after Jesus was resurrected?

Do you remember the command regarding the wave sheaf offering in Leviticus 23, verse 10? I told you I would get back to that. I promised you. The people, the saints, were to bring, or the people at that time during the days of Unleavened Bread, were to bring a sheaf. Remember, a sheaf is a bundle of cut stalks of grain to be presented before the Lord. And in these verses, the other saints come out of their graves representing the initial start of the bundle of the first fruits redeemed by Christ. Now only Jesus Christ went to heaven to ascend to his Father as the Son of God in the first of the first fruits, but these resurrected saints who came out right after his resurrection were symbolic at the start of that small spiritual harvest made possible by the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. These saints lived out their physical lives, and they died once again. But symbolically, they represented part of the sheaf. That is a bundle of cut stalks of grain. Before we go to Acts 2, in which we will kind of wrap up our sermon today, let's explore a brief history of the Holy Spirit and what it does and what it offers us. Help us to deeply appreciate this day. Let's go to Genesis chapter 1 and verse 1, first place, that the Spirit of God is mentioned. I think we need to understand that and to see what the Scriptures teach us. Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And many of us believe this was actually a recreation of the earth going on at this time, something called the gap theory, where the earth had previously been created by God, and it was destroyed through a satanic struggle and came to the point where it was without form and void and darkness was over the earth, literally had been destroyed. But let's continue here. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, and that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

This word here, in English, says, hovering, as the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, is from a Hebrew word, rakoff, and it means to flutter. Like a hummingbird. Ever see a hummingbird just kind of hovering? Right? Fluttering? Midair? That's what this Hebrew word often means. Kind of like you're in a holding position. You're waiting for instruction. You're waiting to be told something. The inference here is that God is beginning, is bringing his presence and power to bear in the recreation of the world. The word spoken of here, later known as Jesus Christ, according to John, chapter 1, the word spoke the world into existence and is its creator.

The Spirit of God is the power that made it happen at the word's command. Job's friend Elihu stated in Job 33, verse 4, The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

And to quote again, that's Job, chapter 33 and verse 4. It's the power of the Spirit of God, and when it was commanded and instructed, that transformed chaos into order and transformed something to a higher level of existence. Let's take a look at another example. 1 Samuel, chapter 10 and verse 1, the anointing of Saul to be king of Israel.

1 Samuel, chapter 10 and verse 1, Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head, that's Saul's head, and kissed him and said, Is it not because the Lord has anointed you, commander over his inheritance? Now let's drop down to verse 6. Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. You see, brethren, the Holy Spirit is a transforming agent. How are we doing in being turned into another person? And that literally happened with him. Again, the Spirit of God, the power of God, transformed Saul, into a higher level of existence. Turned him into another man. What happened in Acts, chapter 2? A group of human beings were turned into new creatures in Christ.

Let's go to 1 Samuel, chapter 19. Another story of Saul. Saul's obviously very tragic in time. He lost the Holy Spirit because of his disobedience. The Holy Spirit was replaced in his life by a demon who tormented him with melancholy and depression in his case. So he had his own personal struggles and problems. But I want you to notice this event in 1 Samuel, chapter 19, verse 19.

Now, it was told Saul, Saul obviously is searching for David. He wants to kill him, frankly. Take note. David is in Naoth, in Rama. Then Saul sent messengers in the Hebrew, deputies, thinking of deputies to arrest him. He sent messengers, deputies, to take David. And when they saw the group of prophets prophesying and Samuel standing as leader over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. You see, they were turned into another man. Let's continue. And when Saul was told, he sent other messengers, deputies, and they prophesied likewise. They were changed into another man. Then Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they prophesied also. And he also went to Rama. All right? He thought, it's the usual story. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. So now I'm going to go, Saul says. So he also went to Rama and came to the great well that is in Sekou. So he asked and said, where are Samuel and David? And someone said, indeed, there at Naoth and Rama. So he went there to Naoth and Rama. Then the Spirit of God was upon him also, and he went on and prophesied until he came to Naoth and Rama. And he also stripped off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel in a manner and laid down naked all that day and all that night. Therefore, they say, is Saul also among the prophets. What happened to him is what happened to every deputy that he sent to arrest David. He was turned into another man. Now, I'm not going to comment on laying naked all night. That's above my pay grade. But I will say that he was transformed into another man from someone who hated David to someone who, I might add, is humbled and submissive to Samuel because of what happens here. The aggressiveness of Saul is humbled and submissive to Samuel, as at least temporarily he's transformed into another man. Matthew 3, verse 13. Let's look at the baptism of Jesus Christ. Matthew 3, verse 13. If you'll turn there with me. Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan and be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent him, saying, I need to be baptized by you and you are coming to me? But Jesus answered and said to him, permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Now, Jesus knew that he wanted all of his disciples to be baptized. And he knew he needed to set the right example. Even if he technically did not need to be baptized because he had not sinned, had nothing to repent of. He knew that his disciples would need to be baptized and he wanted to set the example for the rest of history. You know what would have happened if Jesus hadn't been baptized? People would be reading this now and saying, I don't need to be baptized. Jesus wasn't. So he knows the importance of setting an example because he knows that other people are sinners and they need to repent and they need their sins washed away symbolically by the act of baptism. Says then he allowed him. When he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were open to him. And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.

So, brethren, let's understand this. Jesus had been conceived and married by the Holy Spirit. Even as a small child, he would have had a portion of the Holy Spirit. But here we see that an additional measure, perhaps a full measure, is given to him. Why? So he can perform his ministry. He doesn't confront Satan until this event happens. And he receives the Holy Spirit in full measure. At this point, he's now prepared to confront Satan. And after that, if you read a little further, he begins his ministry with a message of repentance. Because the power of God transformed even the physical Jesus Christ into a higher level. Now let's go to Acts chapter 2 and verse 1. And look at it a little differently. I'll focus on some different things than were wonderfully presented to us in the sermonette today. Acts chapter 2 and verse 1.

And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, this obviously is 31 A.D. Jesus had told them to tarry and to wait until that time and make sure they're obedient and observing the day of Pentecost. They were all with one accord in one place, and this is either on or near the southern stair entrance of the temple.

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and one sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, that is, with known languages of that day, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

They were turned into another being.

On this ancient feast of harvest and firstfruits in 31 A.D., God's Spirit came in the form of tongues of fire and settled on the new believers. We could say that God's presence moved from his old physical house, known as the Temple, and moved into a new spiritual home, the hearts and minds of his disciples and believers, because they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

So now let's see if the power of God transformed the disciples into a higher level. Verse 5.

And there were dwelling of Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. This was one of the three pilgrimage festivals, the Feast of Pentecost, the Shavuot.

And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language.

So one person might be speaking, but people of different ethnicities would hear that very same person speaking in their language or dialect. That was an absolute miracle. Verse 7.

He crisscrosses the entire Roman Empire, people from all over the known Roman Empire at that time. Cretans and Arabs, we hear them speaking in our own tongues, the wonderful works of God.

So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, whatever could this mean? Others said they are full of new wine.

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, men of Judah and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and hear my words.

And we'll stop there, because I pulled out of what we read here, what I wanted to from my main point, and of course the rest was covered very, very well in our sermon today.

What we see here is God's Spirit transforming mere human beings into a higher level of existence.

They were turned into new men and women. They were turned into new creatures in Christ.

So, brethren, here we are, all gathered on this Feast of Weeks for Pentecost on May 28, 2023.

And I want to ask the question, what is yet to be transformed in our lives as the first fruits of God?

In what areas of our life do we maybe need to humble ourselves and become more submissive, like Paul or Saul did in front of the prophet Samuel?

In what areas of our life do we need to allow the Holy Spirit to enhance and magnify something good within us so that we can use it for the benefit of others?

So that we can be a child of God and have the mind of Jesus Christ.

In what areas of our life do we need to allow the Holy Spirit to change us into another person?

Our final scripture today, James chapter 1 and verse 17, if you'll turn there with me.

Hopefully we'll get through this before the...

Fire truck comes and pulls us out of the building.

It sounds like it stopped. James chapter 1 and verse 17.

James wrote, regarding in context the gift of the Holy Spirit, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of Lights, in whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God loves us today. He'll love us tomorrow.

We are His special children. Verse 18, Brother Paul also wrote, regarding us in Romans 8 chapter 22 and verse 23, he wrote this, And not only that, but also we who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we grown within ourselves eagerly awaiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

So, fellow first fruits, those called to be part of God's first small but important harvest.

We are blessed to be part of that first small harvest. God has called only a few out of every age to be His first fruits of salvation.

Many, many others will also be called in the future. God hasn't forgotten them.

And they'll be given an opportunity for salvation at a later time, a much larger harvest, represented by the Feast of Tabernacles.

So, what should we remember and think about on this day of Pentecost in 2023?

Let's continue to allow God to transform us as individuals.

Let's follow the example of others who were turned into another man.

Let's not get complacent. Let's not stop growing or think there's no need to change, or lack a desire to use the fruit of the Spirit to develop even more qualities of Jesus Christ and God in our lives.

Let's continue to allow the Holy Spirit to transform our lives from selfish, carnal, sinful beings into more spiritual, spiritually-minded individuals who have the gift of the Holy Spirit and are developing the spiritual qualities and character and attributes of Jesus Christ.

Let's continue to do that as God's people and as the first fruits of Jesus Christ.

I wish all of you a wonderful and fulfilling day of Pentecost.